I searched the Forum and it didn't seem it was reported yet - so here it is. Gracie did apologize quickly when she realized her tweet came off as inappropriate. And yes, racist to many including myself. I'm not Japanese but I know a racist slur when I see one. I'm hoping Gracie was just too ignorant to realize how very improper that tweet was. Hopefully the damage has been contained and it won't harm her in the eyes of sponsors. She's young. The young do stupid at times - I know I certainly did.

Well, I'd said my piece on Gracie over on FSU, so you can read it all over there. But to sum it up, I think Gracie should be given a bit of grace (pun sort of intended).

1.) The tweet was not said in isolation, i.e. it's not like Gracie just said that tweet alone. It was a tweet that liked to a really nice photo of her and Mao at the NHK Banquet
2.) The tweet was in reference to Mao's line in the ShibSibs video so I'm sure she wanting to pay homage to Mao and her fun role in that video to the Japanese fans.

For me, even though the tweet was in poor taste, it's clear to me that she did not mean malice in her statement.

My hope is Gracie learns from this and will be more careful about what she says from now on.

Youths today just don't understand how to be respectful and sensitive. *sigh*

Youths were just as disrespectful and insensitive in my day, my grandmother's day and I'm sure on and on before. I can say though that in this age such 'jokes' or whatever that was is considered unacceptable today for the most part.

If I read comments correctly over on FSU, Gracie blocked people who pointed out to her that the tweet was racist - but they perhaps did not make her aware of it in a nice way which could be why she blocked them.

I thought she had apologized immediately - I didn't realize she did so only hours later. Her PR team I'm sure read her the riot act and she's not going to be doing this again anytime soon.

If I read comments correctly over on FSU, Gracie blocked people who pointed out to her that the tweet was racist - but they perhaps did not make her aware of it in a nice way which could be why she blocked them.

I thought she had apologized immediately - I didn't realize she did so only hours later. Her PR team I'm sure read her the riot act and she's not going to be doing this again anytime soon.

I felt they were relentless and really hounded her for an apology. It definitely felt like a bit of a witch hunt on the pool girl. So I don't blame her for blocking them. I'm sure if they just said "hey Gracie, did you mean to mock Mao's accent there?" rather than "Gracie, OMG, you're being a racist" before proceeding to badmouth her relentlessly, the situation might have turned out differently.

I thought the Japanese fans who were aware of the situation were pretty gracious: Many of them sent her supportive tweets after she apologized.

That said, it doesn't excuse her from her actions and I hope that she takes a page from her Canton BFF Maia Shibutani and keeps it professional and classy on social media. (Unfortunately, this isn't the first time I've heard about some social media run-in regarding Gracie).

I really dont like it when people older than me make a paintbrush stroke comment about my generation. Yes, there is some truth in what they have to say and hes there are aspects about my generation that will make older generations look at us in disgust, but not all people my age are like that.

Agreed. Ignorance affects all ages. So does stupidity.

Off-topic, but I "follow" a show on Facebook and I remember there was this one time there was a string of comments by "older folk" who were being a bit condescending about younger generations and how they were happy about the younger crowds were moving into Twitter and Tumblr. Some of their comments just made me roll my eyes because they weren't as cool as they thought they were being. In fact, there were very many dumb comments. So stupidity affects all ages--but I think most younger people are more naive than stupid.

Originally Posted by Becki

Youths today just don't understand how to be respectful and sensitive. *sigh*

I'm more inclined to believe that people (in general) have always been disrespectful and insensitive. But with the internet and social media, it's just a quicker and more efficient way of being exposed to those kinds of things.

Blink. Wow. What a stupid stupid tweet. While I understand that Gracie is young and in all probability didn't understand exactly how inappropriate her tweet was, but honestly a part of me will side-eye her for a long time.